Credit cards have been in use in the most different forms and have largely proven their value and found acceptance in cashless purchasing, but also for other purposes, in the form of the usual credit cards, check cards, customer cards. They are about to be introduced in practically all countries worldwide and to become available also to private consumers in ever increasing numbers and diversity.
Such cards, which normally have standardized dimensions, may be offered for different purposes, for example as single-purpose cards for customers and consumers, in which case they would normally fulfill a single function, for example in connection with the operation of rented cars, the handling of banking business, the payment of traveling expenses, as telephone cards, gasoline station service cards, restaurant and department-store cards, or the like. Quite apart from the fact that there are a great number of different credit cards which, as is generally known, are issued by different parties (American Express, Visa, Diners Club, etc.), there also exist a plurality of special or single-purpose cards so that it is by no means rare for a user or user group, for example in countries where such cards have been in use already for an extended period of time, such as the United States of America or England, to possess a quite considerable number of such cards. In the United States, for example, the average citizen owns more than 16 cards, while in Great Britain the average citizen has available 8 cards. And there remains a considerable growth potential for the future, not only in these countries, but worldwide.
This presents certain problems--not only for reasons of convenience, as in many cases the user indeed needs, and has to carry about, a larger number of such cards--but may in fact also create certain safety problems for, if someone carries about a larger number of such cards, which in addition carry the holder's signature in clearly readable form, there obviously exists a risk of loss or forgery. In fact, the cards in use today can be forged relatively easily so that the losses already resulting from the use of forged cards or the fraudulent use of such cards, are already extremely high and are even expected to rise considerably in the future.
Consequently, the problematic situation that one either has to carry about constantly a plurality of such cards or will inevitably find, at the most inconvenient of all times, that the one card needed at the moment has been left at home, is even aggravated by the steadily growing risk of loss or abusive use of such cards.
Now, it is the object of the present invention to remedy this situation and to ensure that, while maintaining the possibility to own and use a practically unlimited plurality of cards or identification cards issued by diverse institutes, companies, authorities, or the like, the user only needs, and is required to carry about, a single card whose safety features are as high as to guarantee that there will not exist any risk of abusive use or forgery in case of loss and that even if very advanced technological means were employed by a counterfeiter any such abusive use or forgery would still be excluded.